


It's not as bad as it looks

by LazySundayMusings



Category: Peter Kay's Car Share (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 03:14:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15940646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LazySundayMusings/pseuds/LazySundayMusings
Summary: Another instalment following S2x02.





	1. The journey home

The sound of the rear passenger door being opened distracted Kayleigh from her phone. She looked over her shoulder to see John laying his jacket across the back seat. “Hiya.”  
“You all right?” he replied. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”  
“I’m good,” she answered. “You?”  
“I’m doing all right,” he answered. He then closed the door, opened the driver’s door and got in. He took the key Kayleigh was holding up, put it in the ignition and then... stopped.  
After a few moments Kayleigh looked across at John. Still nothing.  
“Are you all right over there?”  
“Hmmm,” John replied.  
A pause. “Are you sure?” she pressed.  
He glanced sideways at her, then started the engine. “There’s a couple of things,” he began, as he reversed the Fiat out of the space then started slowly moving forward.  
Another pause. “Well?” said Kayleigh.  
“Oh yeah - right. Um, firstly - thank you for waiting.”  
“It’s only quarter-past - no bother.”  
“Secondly, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”  
“Oh? Well, I suppose that now is...”  
“But on a brighter note,” he interrupted, “there’s a good chance that Dave Thompson will call on the way home.”  
Kayleigh groaned.  
“And while I appreciate that you’re his biggest fan,” John continued, “could I ask that you control yourself when or if he does call, as I’d rather not be the awkward third wheel during one of your verbal love-fests.” He attempted a weak grin as he looked across to her.  
Kayleigh glared at him. “That’s not funny, John. Nothing about it is funny. Nothing about that man... that PIG... that pompous, sarcastic...” She stopped herself and sat with her arms folded tightly.  
“And he’s being a shit to you, John. We can all see it. Since you stood up for Elsie, stood up for me, spoiled his fun... well, I hate... it. I hate what he’s doing to you, that’s all.”  
He sighed. “Look, it’s not that bad.”  
She looked across and arched her eyebrows.  
He glanced at her and shifted uncomfortably. “Well, it’s not great, but it’s not as bad as you think, either. Honestly.”  
She touched his arm. “I don’t remember the last time you actually looked happy at work, John. Some mornings you look like you’re dreading going there, and on the drive home you just look relieved that it’s over.”  
He made to speak but she held up a hand. “I can tell, John. I can just tell. I can see it in your face when you think no one is watching.” She scowled. “All because of Thompson. He is such an effing arsehole!”

Even though they were alone in the car in free-flowing traffic, John looked around in a panic. “Kayleigh! You can’t just keep saying that every time his name is mentioned!”  
“Why? He is an effing arsehole. Are you defending him, John?”  
“No. Listen to me. You need to be more aware of what you’re saying at times, yeah? If you keep reacting like that and it becomes a habit, you might very well blurt it out when he’s right there, and that will be that. Remember in the car that time? Your card is marked, remember? Nothing I say, nothing that anyone says will stop him sacking you in that situation if he decides to. So will you please, please be careful what you say?”  
“Yes, fine!”  
“I mean it! I don’t want to end up with a new car-share buddy just because you were sacked for telling the truth about the store manager. All right?”  
“FINE. I won’t call him an ARSEHOLE any more.”

John frowned. “Thank you. Look, I’ll be okay. He can’t do much to me unless I really screw up, and that’s not going to happen. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction. But I can’t focus on work if I’m worried about you, right?”  
Kayleigh looked surprised. “Do you worry about me?”  
He looked across to her. “Of course I do. I’m your... friend.” He paused and quickly looked back at the road ahead. “That’s what friends do.”

The motorway seemed much emptier than usual. “Wonder where everyone is?” said John.  
Kayleigh spoke up. “What was the other thing you wanted to talk about?”  
“Oh yeah. Um, have I done something to annoy your Mandy?”  
“What makes you say that?”  
“The last couple of mornings I’ve seen her standing by the window, and she’s looking daggers.”  
“Eh?”  
“She was standing there with her arms folded, the same way you do when you’re annoyed about something.”  
Kayleigh glanced down and unfolded her arms. “No I don’t.”  
“Is it me talking to Steve about his bikes in the mornings?”  
“No - we had a discussion that became an argument. It’s a Kitson thing - don’t worry about it.”  
“Right, right.”

At that moment John’s phone starting ringing, and DAVE THOMPSON appeared in the dashboard display. “Right then, here we go,” said John. “Behave, please.”  
He pressed the phone-pickup button on the steering wheel before she could react. “Hi Dave.”  
Dave’s voice came out of every speaker in the car. “John, it’s Dave. I just want to finish what we were talking about earlier, starting with the.. Hey, are you on your own there?”  
“No I’m not.”  
“Right. Good evening Miss Kitson,” said Dave with an obviously cheerless voice.  
“Good evening Mr Thompson,” she replied in the same flat tone.  
“Yes. Anyway John - about the delivery delays from that Liverpool crowd, it won’t be a good look if we don’t have the full display set up as per spec and timeframes.”  
“True Dave, but since the root cause is with their just-in-time delivery model there is nothing we can do about it vis a vis the expectation versus actuality paradigms...”

Kayleigh sat quietly, watching John become a different person simply by virtue of what he was saying and how he was saying it. When he realised that she was watching him John’s face flushed with embarrassment and he quickly looked away, tempering his words as the conversation continued. Dave had no equivalent reality check so his stream of inanities continued unabated.  
“...reach out and connect ear to ear...”  
“...cascading the information to the relevant resources...”  
“...helicopter view...”  
“...dropping that seed onto you...”

Kayleigh’s interest in the content of the conversation was now gone, replaced by a growing sense of annoyance. Annoyance that Dave’s voice was in ‘their’ space when their work-day was meant to be over. Annoyance that she was effectively trapped and forced to listen to his voice. Annoyance that he seemed physically incapable of just shutting his mouth.  
John watched with growing concern as Kayleigh started to clench and relax her fists, and when she started giving the middle finger to the dashboard he waved to get her attention. He held a finger to his lips and winked.

“Oh shit! What a mess!” said John.  
“Eh? What’s going on?” asked Dave.  
“Bit of an accident up ahead. Jesus. I hope they’re all right. Dave, can I call you back in a couple of minutes? I’ll get off at the next junction and call you back, okay?”  
“Oh. Okay John.”  
“Right then,” and John hung up.

Kayleigh looked at him in confusion and started to speak but John held his finger to his own lips then checked his phone to make sure the call had definitely ended.  
They sat in silence for a minute while he turned off the motorway and found a space at the side of the road. “Right,” he said, tapping his phone. “This won’t take long.”  
Kayleigh looked at him. “What accident? The road was clear. What are you doing?”  
“Saving you from yourself,” John replied as he got out. He held the phone to his ear. “Hi Dave, sorry about that. Where were we?”  
He closed the door, leaving Kayleigh alone in the car.

She sat and watched him through the windscreen, trying to read his mood from his face, but all she could see was that he appeared calm and spent an equal amount of time talking and listening. On two occasions he held up his phone in the direction of the motorway then continued to speak. When he walked around to her side he looked in, mimicked the way she was folding her arms then made a face. She responded by poking her tongue out and giving him the fingers. He just grinned and turned around.

Now they were having fun. He would walk towards the car, making a face or poking out his tongue, and she would respond while he was speaking, hoping to break his concentration and force him to turn away. Her reactions escalated each time, until her 10-year-old self took over and she pretended to blow her nose into her hand and wipe it through her hair. John cringed and looked away, shaking his head as he did so. He looked back to the car to see her rocking with laughter.

Two minutes later the call was over, John was back in the car and they were back on the motorway.  
Kayleigh turned in her seat. “John, what was all that? Why did you lie to him about a car crash?”  
“To finish the call as quickly as possible, before you wound yourself up so much that you said something that you wouldn’t have time to regret.”  
She waved dismissively. “I was fine, just pissed off because he wouldn’t shut up. That was all.”  
“Balls. You were like a hand grenade with the bloody pin out.” He shook his head. “I don’t get you, Kayleigh. The way you react to things, I mean. It’s like you decide to let some things get to you, like Dave today. But other times you just deal with stuff and move on. Like Jam Week when your promotions team were in those costumes.” He winced. “I still can’t believe that I seconded that idea - we had no business putting you all through that. Just seeing the reactions from the other staff, let alone the customers - it was such a bad idea. I felt embarrassed for you, embarrassed that the best idea we could come up with was something that the rest of the world stopped doing thirty years ago. But you got on with it, you put up with all the shit, made a success of it.”  
“Does that mean we’ll be doing it again next year?”  
“No. I put my foot down. Told them that our staff - their workmates - deserved better than to be humiliated for the best part of a week just to flog second-rate jam.”  
“Oh. How’d that go down?”  
“Not well. It didn’t help that I described the idea as a huge step backwards.”  
“It wasn’t Dave’s idea, was it?”  
“No, luckily for me, although he was quite keen on it at the time.”  
“Is that why you’ve been getting a hard time?”  
“Partly. But it’s not as bad as it looks. I told you.”

“Well, see John, I don’t understand how you deal with stuff either. You’re clearly not totally happy at the moment, but you just keep putting up with all of it.”  
“I’m not just putting up with all of it. One of the few things I’ve learned working in offices is not to just react to everything. Some things are either right or wrong, and you pick your battles with the rest. That conversation with Dave before didn’t need to happen, but he’s getting panicky because Head Office made promises that none of the stores can keep because one of the suppliers isn’t up to the job, and not for the first time. It’s not our failure. Right now he’ll be on the phone to Area Office to point all this out.”  
“Taking the credit for your thinking, you mean.”  
“Like I said, it’s not the first time that Head Office nominated this supplier. When they look back at our previous submissions they’ll see my name on the paperwork pointing out the problem.”  
“Still - it’s a bit shit that you do the thinking yet he still refers to you as his ‘assistant’ in front of visitors.”  
“Yep - that is a bit shit. But what do expect from an effing arsehole?”  
They laughed.

They pulled up outside the small Bury house. John looked across and saw a figure in the window.  
“Ooh - there’s your Mandy.”  
“What’s she doing?”  
“Just standing there. Arms folded. Just like you do.”  
He waved. Mandy waved in response.  
“Well, she’s being friendly to me. It must be you.”  
Kayleigh made a face. Then she noticed the dashboard display.  
“Has the radio been off the whole time?”  
“Must have been. Didn’t even notice.”  
Kayleigh grinned. “That’ll be my sparkling conversation, then.”  
John rubbed his chin. “Maybe you should go to talk to Mandy. Use some of that sparkling conversation of yours. What’s the worst that could happen?”  
“You could stay and find out.”  
“And get caught up in a Kitson thing? No thank you.”  
“Chicken shit. Go on - run away.”  
“Yes ma’am.”


	2. It’s a Kitson thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Excerpts from the earlier discussion/argument mentioned by Kayleigh shortly after they left the store in Chapter 1.

Mandy and Kayleigh were alone in the house. Steve had recognised the signs and had lined up tickets at the local cinema for himself and the kids. After herding them into the car he walked back into the house, looked at each sister in turn then said “It’s time you tried to sort this out. Shout if you have to. But no hitting.”

As the door clicked shut Kayleigh looked at Mandy. “Is this really necessary?”  
“Steve thinks so. He can tell just by watching how you act around each other. Isn’t it about time you both grew up and talked to each other about it?”  
“We talk all the time.”  
“You know perfectly well what I mean. Are you going to tell him or what?”  
“Tell him what?”  
“How you feel.”  
“There’s no point. He’s happy being friends.”  
“Really? Explain the business in the car that night. I don’t remember you saying he tried to fight you off.”  
“It just sort-of happened. But didn’t actually happen.”  
“Yeah - you were pissed, again, essentially came onto him but then left him hanging while you answered the phone, and he’s happy with that?”  
“That’s not what happened. And we talked about it.”  
“Is he just a pushover or something? What’s he playing at? What kind of man gets treated like that and carries on as if nothing had happened?”  
“Did you forget when we had the argument and he kept away from me for a week and we basically didn’t speak for about two weeks? How is that just putting up with anything?”  
“He didn’t exactly react though, did he? He just kept out of your way.”  
“Are you saying it would have been better if he’d hit me or something?”  
“No! Of course not.”  
“Well, what then?”

... (later) ...

Mandy was on a roll. “Look, you make bad decisions when you get pissed. You make bad choices.”  
“Are you sure you want to have this discussion? Really? What about some of your choices?”  
“This is not about me and my mistakes. This is about you not wanting to be honest with yourself or with him.”  
“I’m not lying to him.”  
“I didn’t say that. But you’re not telling him the whole story either. Don’t you think he deserves to know the truth? Be honest, let him decide for himself, then let him be honest with you.”

... (later still) ...

Mandy was glaring at Kayleigh. “Of course I remember. I remember the mistakes and what it took to fix them, I remember taking chances, I remember the failures, all of it. But I faced it head-on, asked for help when I needed it, was honest with myself, with everybody. And look where I am now.”  
“You being married with children does not make you better than me. Mum was married with children. Is she better than me as well?”  
“Oh, not this again. This isn’t a competition.”

... (even later) ...

“Really? Would we be having this argument if you only thought of him as your car-share buddy?”

... (even later still) ...

“Then why did you get all shitty when your good friend Rachel with the long blonde hair and longer legs was sniffing around him that time?”  
“Because she’s a skank and he can do much better.”  
“Don’t you think he knows that? Maybe he doesn’t want to. Do you suppose he’s still got her number in his phone?”  
“He has. I checked.”  
“You did what? You are unbelievable. You looked in his phone? How did you unlock it?”  
“He unlocked it when I wanted to watch a Youtube video. And I peeked in his contacts at the same time.”  
“Oh, brilliant. You’ve gone straight to ‘crazy ex-girlfriend’ status.”

... (after a brief ‘time-out’ to calm down) ...

“Really. Then look me in the eye and tell me that you’re not in love with him.”  
Kayleigh looked at Mandy, then looked away but said nothing.  
“Oh.” Mandy reached under Kayleigh’s chin and gently turned her face around, then looked into her eyes. “Oh my God. You are in love with him, aren’t you?”  
“Yes. Yes. Yes! Are you happy, now you’ve made me say it?”  
“Of course I am!” Mandy’s hug left Kayleigh breathless.

... (not much later) ...

“Just be subtle. A casual suggestion. Lunch together maybe?”  
“We have a bite after work a fair bit.”  
“Go for something a little different, somewhere else.”

“Ask him out for a drink sometime. He seemed happy enough when Rachel suggested it.”  
“He doesn’t drink though.”  
“Might be a good idea if you didn’t either.”

“Just start having lunch outside in the good weather, in a public place, away from work. Invite him and just go even if he’s not keen.”  
“Invite him?”  
“Sure - just tell him you’re going and ask if he’s interested. Or, go for style points and do the film-star thing. You know - sashay up to him, tilt your head forward, look over the top of the sunglasses and then flutter your eyelashes at him.”  
“Okay...”  
“And maybe he won’t notice how big your bum is getting.”  
“Oy! Cheeky bitch!”

“What about going out for pizza and a film?”  
“That’s ‘going out’, isn’t it?”  
“Or maybe a takeaway after work?”  
“Now you’re talking!”

“Speaking of talking...”  
“Yeah, I know.”  
“Well, make sure you do something about it. It sounds like you talk about a lot of different stuff already, so just... keep doing that but add to it now and then, be subtle. And don’t just blurt it out, whatever you do. And definitely don’t tell him you’ve taken a look at the contacts in his phone. Fairly sure that’s gonna scare him off.”


End file.
